Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Cancer survivor’s life chronicled in documentary
Wright hopes her book, film and life will help people figure out they have options when it comes to cancer treatment.
SILOAM SPRINGS — Diana Wright will have her life chronicled in a feature film documentary which will be released in December.
Wright, the owner of Divine Health in Siloam Springs, overcame childhood abuse, poverty and a fight with terminal cancer to become an accomplished business owner and naturopathic doctor. Her life is chronicled in the documentary “The Unbelieveable Plight of Mrs. Wright.”
Wright’s struggle to overcome adversity began when she was still a child living in an abusive household, she said.
“So I was a child of a divorced crazy mother and an alcoholic father,” Wright said. “I was an abused child … when I was 11, I was responsible for all of the bills, and from the time I was 12 on I was working three jobs.”
Wright said she would clean houses in the poorest part of town, baby sit and shared a paper route with her brother. Home was filled with beatings from her mother and torment from her brother who acted just like her mother, Wright said.
Wright married her first husband, Tim, at age 18 and gave birth to her first daughter at 19. She said she picked out a man who acted just like her mother. When the couple separated Wright went to college and Tim did his own thing, which included multiple trips to Europe, Wright said.
When she was in her junior year of college, she finally divorced her husband, deciding she would rather be alone than be abused.
When she met her second husband David, she said she didn’t want to get married because of her experience. David convinced her to give marriage another chance and the marriage has been a 40-year success, Wright said.
After graduating from college and passing her boards, Wright went to work for two hospitals in Shreveport, La.
In 1991 Wright received her master of business administration in business, marketing and related support services and went to work for a medical staffing company for four years until she and her husband moved to Arkansas in 1995. In 1996, Wright opened The Right Solutions, a medical staffing company.
Over the years she scored 100 percent on all audits and won numerous awards including Businessman of the Year in 2004 and Business Executive of the Year in 2009.
Then in 2012 life would take Wright on a different path.
In early 2012, Wright was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer.
“I had 47 failed diagnosis attempts and I had everyone tell me what was wrong with me was that I was not accepting menopause well,” Wright said.
Wright sought a second opinion from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, but while she had her diagnosis confirmed, Wright also felt betrayed by the institution she had worked in for 33 years at the time.
“The way I was told was basically, ‘You’ve got end stage cancer and you probably won’t live six months, have a nice day,’” Wright said.
After receiving her diagnosis Wright went home and thought the only thing she knew was traditional medicine. Wright knew if she did chemotherapy, radiation and surgery alone she would die, she said. That was when Wright decided to try naturopathic care along with chemotherapy.
She went to Barnes & Noble and bought 40 books on naturopathic care and began educating herself. Wright also prayed to God, she said. God’s response was to “Do whatever comes up.”
Several things came up for Wright. First she received a large amount of items from Tontitown, Wright said. She received juicers, crystals, water machine and even a prayer shawl, Wright said.
“When I left that day, I had a Tahoe, it was packed like I was moving,” Wright said.
She turned her company over to her son-in-law and began her battle. Wright’s second daughter recommended another doctor, Dr. Peggy Alabi who was a medical doctor but also did naturopathic care. Alabi recommended different supplements and did energy work on Wright.
Wright’s best breakthrough came when one of her employees recommended a physician, Dr. Ralf Kleef, in Austria. She had called Kleef, who returned her phone call late at night.
“He called me from Austria and he was talking to me,” Wright said. “My time was 3 p.m. in the afternoon, his time it would have been 11 p.m. at night.”
When she met with Kleef she began describing her cancer to Kleef, who took her hand and told Wright he didn’t care what the name of it was, he was going to kill it.
Wright stayed in Austria from September 2012 to December 2012, then returned for a few weeks every three months.
One of the things Kleef did to help treat Wright’s cancer was to use a heat machine to sweat out toxins, Wright said.
“You were put inside this hyperthermia machine and it brought your temperature up to 104 degrees,” Wright said.
She said this would cause her immune system to fight the cancer cells instead of fighting her own body. Wright continues to follow the regimen that she used to beat cancer and modified it to continue to remain cancer free.
Wright said four years earlier she received another message from God to share what she learned. She went on to obtain a doctorate in naturopathic medicine from
Trinity School of Natural Health in Warsaw, Ind.
Wright opened Divine Health three months ago and began treating patients using naturopathic care. Wright doesn’t diagnose or treat medical conditions, nor does she prescribe any medications. She instead looks at interactions of systems of the body and uses supplements to help her patients.
Wright says the key to the treatment is to stick with it. She has seen a lot of people stop their treatment in the middle of the fight when they start doing better and go on vacation, she said.
“People will start doing really, really good and that is when they need to start doubling down,” Wright said.
Wright published her first book “The Unbelievable Plight of Mrs. Wright” in 2019, she said. The book chronicled Wright’s journey through life until 2012 when she received her final diagnosis saying she had ovarian cancer.
Wright didn’t include her cancer battle because her book was already 400 pages long and she said she had to stop somewhere.
Wright also wrote books about battling cancer, and is contemplating writing a book about the murder of a friend.
The film came about when she was talking to Frank Whalen, a holistic health care professional and reiki master who also works with Wright. Whalen told her she had an amazing story and it needed to be told.
In 2018, Whalen introduced Wright to producers Robin Davey and Greta Valenti who found the story interesting and wanted to do the story, Wright said.
The film chronicled the events of her first book along with 100 pages of a diary she kept about her battle with cancer, Wright said.
On Aug. 3, 2019, Wright hosted a private screening for her film at the Berry Performing Arts Center at John Brown University for the community.
The film won first place at the Mindfield Film Festival and the South Film and Arts Academy Festival in 2019; and the Eurasia International Monthly Film Festival and the Red Dirt Film Festival in 2020, according to the film’s Internet Movie Data Base page.
The film will be released nationwide Christmas of this year, Wright said.
Wright hopes her book, film and life will help people figure out they have options when it comes to cancer treatment.
“They don’t just have to do just the traditional way of medicine, that they can do a combination of naturopathic and traditional care,” Wright said.
Above all, Wright wants her patients to live.